Golden Voice tries to provide new highlight

In 50 years on the racetrack, Michael Trivigno has enjoyed the occasional 15 minutes of fame. By running Golden Voice on Saturday in the $50,000 Wishing Well Stakes, Trivigno will be trying to get a welcome few moments in the spotlight at Turfway Park.

Golden Voice, a winner in three of her last four starts, is part of a full field of fillies and mares entered in the six-furlong Wishing Well, the featured 11th of 12 races at the Florence, Ky., track.

Trivigno was the trainer of Lil E. Tee when the eventual Kentucky Derby winner was a 2-year-old based at Calder in the summer of 1991. Trivigno ran Lil E. Tee twice, after which the colt wound up being sold privately for $200,000, leaving Trivigno as a footnote in racing history.

Otherwise, Trivigno, 67, has had his fair share of highlights since going to work as a stablehand for a trainer named E.W. King in New Jersey in 1956. He won or shared three training titles at Tampa Bay Downs, including in 1978, when he sent out a career-high 93 winners, and he saddled Paved in Gold to win the Grade 2 Astarita at Belmont in October 1998.

It just so happens that Paved in Gold is the dam of Golden Voice, who drew the outside post 12 in the Wishing Well. Paved in Gold was owned by Brian Dance, who has been Trivigno's main client for the past 15 years and who bred the mare to Stravinsky to produce Golden Voice.

Golden Voice, said Trivigno, "is going into this race real well."

Golden Voice won a Turfway allowance going 6 1/2 furlongs Dec. 28.

"She really seems to like that Polytrack," Trivigno said. "We're keeping our fingers crossed."

Golden Voice figures as one of the middle wagering choices in a race that should have Mary Delaney as a slight favorite over Evasive and Mocha Queen. Mary Delaney, owned by Fergus Galvin and trained by Eddie Kenneally, was a sharp winner of a Dec. 15 allowance at Turfway and has retained Julien Leparoux for this race.

The Wishing Well got its name by accident. The race was supposed to be called the Wishing Ring, named for a mare that returned $1,885.50 on a $2 win bet in 1912 at the old Latonia, but a printer's error before the 1983 inaugural gave the race a different name.